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TRAVEL THE SILK ROAD – THE TRAIL OF AFGHAN HEROIN

01 Jul 2016

“Poppy” at C/O Berlin is a kaleidoscope of chaos and capital.

A new exhibition at C/O Berlin, whose excellent photography exhibitions we’ve highlighted before on Parallel, looks at the Silk Road, which has connected East Asia to the West for thousands of years. More specifically, it focuses on the opium and heroin trade, which travels from Afghanistan to the West via Russia, the Balkans, East Africa and even Dubai.

Opium was used by the US-funded Mujahadeen in the 1980s to fund the war against the USSR. Thirty years later, after a violent invasion and occupation by the US, Afghanistan is producing 90% of all opium worldwide, much of which is consumed in the West. This is the dark side of globalisation.

It’s a story of geopolitics, HIV/AIDS and hedonism – all photographed by Robert Knoth and Antoinette de Jong. Knoth is a Dutch internationally renowned documentary photographer, who has twice won the World Press Award; and de Jong is a photographer and broadcaster journalist who has reported from Somalia, Iraq and Yugoslavia.